1. Field
Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a clothing dryer for drying a substance such as clothes, and more particularly, to a clothing dryer capable of effectively drying a small amount of substance, and a control method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
A clothing dryer is an apparatus designed to dry clothes to be dried (hereinafter, referred to as a substance to be dried) while rotating a dry tub (drum) accommodating the substance to be dried and supplying air heated by a hot air heater. The clothing dryer as such is divided into an exhaust-type dryer to exhaust a high-temperature, humid air passing through the dry tub, to an outside the dryer, and a condenser-type dryer to remove humidity from a high-temperature, humid air and to recycle the air having the humidity removed therefrom to an inside of the dry tub.
The clothing dryer is provided with a dry course including a sensor-dry course to automatically determine a degree of drying a substance and to sense a target degree for termination of drying, and a manual dry course to have a user randomly set the time and the temperature to dry a substance.
In general, the sensor-dry course has the designated temperature and the time for the material characteristic of each substance to be dried, thereby inducing a user to select a course suitable for the material. In this case, if a small load of substance having a less amount thereof or a small size thereof is input and dried in the dryer, an algorithm for each dry course (a normal dry course, a towel dry course, a perm dry course, or a delicate dry course) designed based on a conventional standard capacity, a sensing value of the degree of drying, or a characteristic value for temperature increase and control may be changed. In addition, if a small load of substance has an amount less than the entire volume of the clothing dryer (in detail, the volume of the dry tub), the determination on the degree of drying and the capability to control the temperature are degraded at the sensor-dry course, so that drying is not effectively performed and the substance remains damp at the termination of the dry course.
In a case where a manual dry course is conducted to prevent the drawback as such, an inconvenience of a user in manually operating the dryer and an error in drying, such as an excessive drying or an incomplete drying, may occur.